Is it just me? Or has scientific and technological progression slowed down compared to past eras? If so, why?

I can't find the article now, but the dudes at nVidia said they have made more advances in AI in the past 3 years than the past 20. Also if you have been watching their tech demos you'd probably agree.

I don't know. I grew in the 90's and we have to do shit tons of stuff like ask for directions and hunt for pay phones than we don't have to do today.

I mean people keep bitching about flying cars, but I'd rather have my android phone and the internet than flying cars.

PS: Flying cars would be great for ISIS.

Yeah he talks about computers and how much they've advanced rapidly, but at least from an economics point of view, technological progress for progress's sake isnt that important. It's more important how usefully that technological progress can improve productivity.

Which is why he coined (i think) this term:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Productivity_paradox

>"You can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics."

Yeah, I forgot all about the lost Chinese art of microprocessors.

It has slowed down, after all 1900-2000s was a big leap. We went from horse & wagon to cars, airplanes and space exploration, excluding everything else that has made life much easier.

There's really nothing that big on the way now, especially not something to invest in. All the big things are already here, cars, airplanes, phones, computers. They're not changing very much.

Just keep in mind that only a few decades ago computers took up entire rooms, now you can fit something with 10x more the power in your pocket and use it to access a global network of information.

We're refining technology at an incredible rate, the fact that it isn't """"new""""" is irrelevant, the jump from horse & buggy to early automobiles was arguably less dramatic than the jump in computer technology in the last two or three decades.

It hasn't slowed down at all. The major advances are being made in electronics and software. While we've slowed down in the development of material sciences, other fields have picked up the pace.

If you think technological progress has not been accelerating, you simply aren't looking in the right place. AI's and neural learning in 2017 is incomparable to AI in 2015. Alphago is a great example. In 2015 the best Go AI was losing every match to good human players, in 2017 Alphago bent the best human player in the world over a barrel, not dropping a single game in over 100 games.

>Several authors have explained the paradox in different ways. In his original article, Brynjolfsson (1993) identified four categories to group the various explanations proposed:

>Mismeasurement of outputs and inputs,
>Lags due to learning and adjustment,
>Redistribution and dissipation of profits, and
>Mismanagement of information and technology.
Dont trust random people on the internet who dont know what they are doing.
In reality we have the highest productivity of any generation.On top of that we are developing general purpose robots which, once cheap enough will take any low wage job like fast food and cashier work within a few years in most large cities. On top of self driving cars there will be a massive growth in productivity soon

>once cheap enough will take any low wage job like fast food and cashier work within a few years in most large cities. On top of self driving cars there will be a massive growth in productivity soon

The question is what will happen to all those low skill workers / drivers. Will enough new jobs fill the vacuum? What sort of training will be needed if all the menial work is automated?

Extra productivity doesn't necessarily mean anything if, even if goods are cheaper, nobody can make a living.

Its just you. The reason why is because we as a species have gotten used to technological progress and as such require big leaps or turn overs in order for us to notice anymore, which is going to happen soon in the form of self driving vehicles and general purpose robots doing minor labor killing the job market entirely.

>Will enough new jobs fill the vacuum?
No which is a problem that no one is ready to face
Get ready for great depression 2 electric boogaloo

>Brynjolfsson (1993) identified four categories to group the various explanations proposed
did you even read what you posted?

That's the original author basically categorizing what possible explanations of the paradox could look like. He didn't come to a conclusion in the paper that any of those explanation actually hold true.

Plus explanations 3 and 4 that you posted would mean that "that there really are no major benefits (To IT)"

what a bunch of sci-fi memes

Maybe if we import 100 million third worlders the problem will resolve itself.

> once cheap enough will take any low wage job like farming and mining work within a few years in most villages. On top of harvesters there will be a massive growth in productivity soon

> The question is what will happen to all those low skill farmers / miners. Will enough new jobs fill the vacuum? What sort of training will be needed if all the menial work is automated?

> Extra productivity doesn't necessarily mean anything if, even if goods are cheaper, nobody can make a living.

> How the fuck are you going to find jobs for the millions of unemployed farmers made obsolete by mechanical reapers

The world survived the industrial revolution and living conditions for everyone skyrocketed as a result. The world will survive the automation revolution as well.

Your actually right, Ill be honest Im kinda tired right now.
Im trying to re-read up on economics terms right now to properly define productivity, and what I can gather it mean basically the more productivity the more people are able to spend because they are working harder and thus making more stuff to earn and spend on
the reason I can think of is just that jobs are being taken by robots, which means productivity isn't going back into the majority of the population and instead into the manufacturers of the product itself, and once no one is willing and able the company is unable to support itself.

Well, by classical terms I suppose productivity hasn't increased.

However, informational, it has become overwhelming.

Between 1900 and 1920 the terms of mechanical or at least industrial advances were most likely greater than ours, but informational wise I'd say our society is advancing quite more.

Rather... Due to the fact capitalism focus on consumer needs, society wants to be entertained and have access to information so advances in broad band, home delivery (grub hub etc), and various other entertainment technologies have advances at far greater speeds than say industrial production.

After all we can throw more immigrants at making more shit in factories, but since consumers aren't rich enough to own immigrants at home 24/7 we have to automate that shit.

Also where capitalism can't hire cheap immigrants (say due to minimum wage and immigration laws and the fact consumers don't want to deal with people who don't speak English well) then money is being thrown at trying to automate those jobs rather than pay the minimum wage.

Oh this is very good.

Might as well post the other

I'm not saying the world won't survive, but you need to acknowledge that the industrial revolution was accompanied by fucking garbage living standards for decades, it took many years to begin to pay off for your average worker. On a selfish basis I'd rather not get utterly buttfucked so my kids or grandkids can enjoy a higher standard of living, and I'd rather governments make adequate preparations to prevent the inevitable clusterfuck that accompanies radical shifts in employment.

Speaking of consumer needs, perhaps the most visible changes in the past decades has been increasing globalization of consumption. Ordering a million things from all corners of the globe has never been faster, more affordable or more convenient (and when it's expensive at all it's typically due to parasitic middlemen or protectionist measures.) Whatever your lifestyle needs and preferences, you will have little trouble getting all the goods you could ever wish to spend your money on wherever you are, and most services too.

We can complain at length about the quality of supermarket products and extol the benefits of eating locally, and I would mostly agree, but the point is that it wouldn't have been possible before modern logistics and purchasing power made it profitable, and that's progress in one direction.

Not just you
In 60yrs we went from candlelit nights and horse drawn carriages to landing men on the moon. Since then what? Smart phones, internet, toliets that wipe your ass for you. Amazing.
The only advancements that matter now are military and monetary

Yes, ti's just you, it's exponentially faster than ever, you retarded fuck.

Compare your life with that of some average joe from 60 years ago and see how drastically different it is, now compare the life of someone who lived in 1100 AD to the average guy who lived in 1600 AD, barely any difference for 90% of people

>Smart phones, internet, toliets that wipe your ass for you. Amazing.
Where's the joke?

In some aspects, yes. Moore's law is slowing down and may even stop in a few years.

technologyreview.com/s/601441/moores-law-is-dead-now-what/

Hasn't slowed down at all if you ask me.

It's just that people only see and feel the big game changers like the internet.

In 10-15 years, the world is going to change drastically once again with the normality of self-driven cars and targeted A.I.

And 30-40 years down the line we have probably invented a strong A.I too, and then we'll all be damned.

To be fair that just means we're reaching the physical limits of chip miniaturization, as the article points out we still have other areas of improvement. For example:
>Simon says the coming plateau in transistor density will stir more interest in redrawing the basic architecture of computers among supercomputer and data-center designers. Getting rid of certain design features dating from the 1940s could unlock huge efficiency gains
This implies computer architecture had mostly "stagnated" relative to increases in transistor density because it wasn't worth pursuing and now it is, which should mean it will progress a lot faster now.
The author does mention that advances in computing power may not reach all companies but it's not like inventions and other improvements were equally distributed during the industrial revolution either.

With the progression humanity made in 60yrs, you'd think we'd be colonizing mars by now, or mining asteroids. But no we've got Veeky Forums and tumblr. Now little Billy can browse porn anywhere anytime! And Marcy can stay up-to-date on all the latest twitter drama!
Scientific advancements have stagnated because people are more interested in advancing their wallets (now more than ever) instead of improving the overall quality of life. Yes lets keep advancing computing so I can play more realistic video games! VR porn! Alternate sources of energy? Epidemiology? Advancing our knowledge of physics? Fuck off there's no profit in that! Here's a new robot that will suck your dick

>"Waaah we aren't progressing in the direction I want, I want robots mining asteroids not stupid Veeky Forums!" he posted on Veeky Forums instead of working on his robotics thesis

We went from Pong in 1972 to the Xbox and PS2 6th gen console era and amazing CRPGs and strategy games like Morrowind, Neverwinter Nights, Warcraft III, Total War just 30 years later, that's an incredibly fast progression in graphics and game design complexity even if you hate having fun for some reason.

trying to have a discussion here, not sure why you're getting angry. Ask anyone with any degree in science and they'll tell you that money is everything. Say you've found the cure for cancer, but if no one wants to fund you then you'll never be able to develop it
yea and i'll agree with you, we've come so far with video games/computers and they look great. Everyone likes having fun

Will the Earth still be habitable if our industry keep growing indefinitely though?

He has a point, you know.

>Morrowind, Neverwinter Nights, Warcraft III, Total War
lmao

He's right tho

innovation has been gutted in the 80's.
we have had no true invention in the last 10 years, just making old patents better is not inventing.
but soon we will be into the galactic web, insta tech wall released to earth.
get ready for the ride of your reached lives kids,

ah yes can't wait

I suspect that the people saying that our technological and sicentific progress has slowed down have never studied science and probably didn't pay much attention to it in highschool while the ones correctly saying that we are progressing faster than ever before have.

Just you.

The modern tech progression is increasing at a faster pace. Changes happen rapidly in our modern times. Self Driving cars 5 years ago? Predicted to be atleast 20 years away. Self Driving cars now? Within a year or two(mass marketed version).

Just because you're too lazy to learn about physics and medicine doesn't mean that they aren't advancing. And if you like space exploration then I have good news because right now our solar system is full of NASA probes exploring at a tiny fraction of the price and risk of a manned mission. Juno just passed over Jupiter's great red spot a few days ago and captured the closest images we have ever taken.

Holidays and retirement aside most of those predictions were actually correct, but even so they're right about work being much less demanding in general.

woah

Home ownership is at 30 year low. Not only have we missed the target, we have reversed the trend and are in decline.

True, not only has home ownership collapsed but I'm willing to bet rents eat up a larger share of the income for those who don't live in social housing or their own homes.

It has indeed slowed down, and it has a lot to do with the way education works nowadays and capitalist investment.

There is also very little money going on in technological innovation.

yea but every 4yrs nasa's budget gets cut. The future of space exploration is up to a select few individuals with loads of cash

NASA budget has been relatively same for the last 2 decades with minor cuts and minor boosts. The problem is, it hasn't been kept up with the rise in GDP and it hasn't taken accounted for the inflation.

So its been a downward slope because of that.

>Slowed down
Argue for it. As it is now, there is no slowdown, just little to no awareness of how tech has improved or changed.

You also confuse common use, I.E smartphones app ecology
Yet with existing use, it can be said that: many of smartphone tech usage would be possible for specialized hardware as far back as mid 90s
One could also argue that Internet Shopping is just mail order on steroids, which it is. Combined with merchant standards, is a reason of little to no improvement.

>Warcraft III
my nigga

Because Scientists are too stupid to push Ocean expoloration

when have governments shown any competence with respect to long term planning?

When have governments shown any Willingness to carry out long term planning?

David Cameron thought no-one would vote for brexit when he added the referendum to his election platform...

why did you place NPR in parentheses?

NPR is Soros funded media

It's not just you. We realized how dangerous alot of things are and more or less just started to stick to things like computers. Government regulation plays a part in this too. Most of the places that are wealthy enough to drive research in some fields just have no available capital because it'll be impossible to actually make a profit. Don't get me wrong, there's still alot of research being done, it's just that funding has dried up for alot of the fields that are either more dangerous or less immediately profitable which makes it look like nothing is being done there. I don't know if it really needs to be fixed. I'm not a researcher or a legislator or a venture capitalist. My own personal opinion is that if anything, space travel and nuclear energy should be developed further before anything else. But I also understand that that's easier said than done. There's really no easy answer. But yes progress SEEMS slower because funding is very concentrated and most people never really read scientific papers which would give them an understanding of the incremental nature of discovery. In actuality we're probably much better off now than we ever were. It's just that we probably could be doing better.

where does AM fit in on this chart?

muh dick

>basic working week, hrs
>20
HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAH

All I want is waifu bots, desu

Yeah with a shitty camera. Get probes on titan and under the ice on Europa then I'll be impressed. James awenn telescope will probably not unravel properly and be useless.

"Technological immortality" is a meme for people who don't believe in God but are still afraid of death.

Faster computers != the invention of cars/airplanes/modern medicine.

There are natural limits to natural resources, social stability, and human ingenuity. We will hit that limit very soon.

Yes, it's all getting smaller, more powerful and more effective. But there are no more great leaps as what I am saying. We will not go from our PCs today to some fucking monster machine that is 20x of the best PC today anytime soon.

>muh AI

Excluding everything else are we? Yes things like AI are being developed but they're nowhere near close to being regarded as the next big technological thing.

I mean improvement as in, branching out from one hamburger shack to tens of thousands worldwide a la McDonalds, or from one big clunky box to paper thin computers in laptops.

It has stagnated from an investor perspective, or plateaued if you will.

>There are natural limits to natural resources, social stability, and human ingenuity. We will hit that limit very soon.

They keep on saying this shit since 1899.

good argument

so 60 years ago it was 1960
and 60 years before that it was 1900
Do you not think that the guy in 1900 might be dramatically impressed by the guy who lived in 1960? He might be more impressed than today, since all we have that is different for personal usage compared to 1960 are smaller computers and mobile phones

>muh infinite progress toward infinity
Case in point: oil. Eventually, and likely within our lifetimes, it will become prohibitively expensive to extract, and will cost more than it is worth. What then? Alternative energy is a useless meme, and in a post-petroleum world there won't be sufficient resources/logistics/money/food to develop it.

obviously the last one

>Get probes on titan

1. Europe has passed legislation to require electric cars.

2. Saudi Arabia is sitting on a lot more oil than they are letting on.

60yrs before landing on the moon we had rudimentary rocketry and otherwise
The phone in our hands has more computing power than literally supercomputers did in 1969, and literally thousands of times more computing power than the computers on Apollo 11. One thing wrong with your view of how far technology has gone is that it has outstripped its own effectiveness against the laws of physics and cost effectiveness, as well as other factors. You're deluded.

There are alternatives to oil which are not currently monetarily incentivized but will be when oil is 1000 dollars a gallon.

Not in our lifetime. Fracking and horizontal drilling are going to keep fossil fuels flowing for a long time to come. After that I'm betting on nuclear.

Nuclear doesn't power our cars and make our hydrocarbon based plastics...new battery technologies and hydrocarbon technologies do however

You can use biomatter like corn to make plastic if you really need to.

Also you guys are thinking like normies.

The reason you should like solar power is not because its some hippie love the earth shit.

The reason is that you can get off the grid and stop paying power companies money.

Why does the difference between 2017-2010 feel less impressive than the difference between 2003-2010?

>You can use biomatter like corn to make plastic if you really need to
thats basically what I said
I understand how you feel but its probably just because you got older

Because the original iPod was discontinued

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Stagnation

Maybe I'm crazy but it could have something to do with that little market correction we had nearly a decade ago.

OP here. Finally some actual light shed on my question.

Have we not recovered and then some, or am I ignorant as fuck?

can confirm

existential dread

what is this from?

SCP? Portal?

you didn't even read my post

This.

>It has stagnated from an investor perspective
Carbon fiber is now a common material in building of objects. Eink would be a common material for everything merchant related, if the company wasn't a piece of shit.
Tablets as they are now, couldn't really exist before the 2010s. Nor could any of the AR stuff in phones or tablets, simply because it requires a somewhat beefy CPU and camera to even attempt it.

I am just happy Tesla produced a non piece of shit Electric Car, with realistic usage.
I don't get the insane people making upsized electric scooters in the 1970s, who won't sell because they are too small and too limited in range. Even the electric scooter cars changed a lot after Tesla, where non shit makers upgrade size and speed to realistic demands(1.5 seats and some baggage space in trunk)

> It argues that the American economy has reached a historical technological plateau and the factors which drove economic growth for most of America's history are mostly spent.
Thats a dishonest way of saying that Centralization has stopped the expansion of infrastructure, so America has reached Peak Economy, because it lacks the infrastructure to expand it.

Like, it states that
>These figurative "low-hanging fruit" from the title include the cultivation of much free, previously unused land
Basically the land is not being cultivated, and the 2 future coast megacities are getting bigger and bigger. And its hurting the American expansion of the economy.
The same is true in countries like
-Poland:demographic stagnation, even with the massive import from their foreign workers
-Norway: End of cold war means it practically killed everything it did to fuel a decentralized military strategy, essentially making its captial area into a filthy urban sprawl that keeps on expanding
-Most of EU that isn't Francogermany, because it changed production to Francogermany.

He looked thin as Joji.

Well first of all merely recovering would mean you're just back to pre-crash level, so that's economic stagnation. Growing a bit more still means there hasn't been much economic growth since the crash.
But the point is that when the economy is moribund you can't expect as many advances in most areas.

It is just you, but it's not your fault.
The average newspaper headlines with 'Kanye and Kim to have baby', rather than 'scientists write gif into bacteria DNA'

bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-40585299